Hi friends! I am Megan from the blog Two Delighted that I write with my sister Colleen. We wanted to share a quick and easy little DIY idea today that you can make as a Valentine for your girlfriends. Or you could really make it any other time of year as well. We were inspired by the Valentines party invite by Tiny Prints called Shining Delight which we decided could be used just as well as a sweet Valentine’s card if we changed up the wording a bit. We were really taken with how beautiful the gold leaf effect looked on the card’s lettering so we decided to make something that used actual gold leaf to compliment the cards.

We created a tiny gold leaf canvas for each of our valentines with their initials painted in the middle. We thought it would be something cute for them to add to their gallery walls or perhaps just to a decorative vignette.

Our inspiration:

What you’ll need:

a little canvas (the one I used was 4” X 5”)

paint colors of your choice

a very skinny paintbrush- the skinnier the better

a packet of full gold leaf sheets (all of the gold leaf items can be found at craft stores)

gold leaf adhesive spray

gold leaf sealer spray

What you’ll do:

Move your clean white canvas to a well ventilated area and spray your canvas on the front and sides with your adhesive.

Since the spray adhesive is already sticky, you can go ahead and apply your gold leaf sheet. I found the easiest way to do this is to peel off a sheet of the gold leaf while still attached to the thin divider papers on each side. Handle the divider paper only as much as possible. The gold leaf is so thin that it will stick to your fingers. Remove the top divider paper and flip everything over so the gold leaf is facing down while laying it directly over your sticky canvas. I know this sounds complicated but you will understand what I mean as soon as you try to do it. Use the divider paper still on top of your leaf sheet to smooth it down on the front and sides of the canvas.

Use a dry paintbrush to smooth down the rest of the gold leaf and make it look lovely. You want to make sure to mush down any little air bubbles. Remove excess golf leaf from side and add to places that didn’t get covered.

Once your adhesive is dry, spray your canvas with the sealer.

After the canvas dries, paint on your initial/design and you are done. I would practice on paper to work out any kinks first. I think the gold leaf is so pretty that it is really the star of the show and you don’t need to get elaborate with your painting. No artistic talents needed.